So Thumper, have you ever thought of writing a book? “No,” comes the reply. “I know too much.”
He’s not joking either. Alan Phillips has seen it all and has the keys to the cupboards containing all the skeletons. But it's very much a case of what goes on tour stays on tour, with confidences to be kept, and penning a no-holds-barred autobiography wouldn’t sit with that.
So, that being the case, what follows is probably the closest you are going to get to the life and times of the man known throughout the game as Thumper, and it has been some life.
There was a playing career which spanned 20 years and brought him 18 Wales caps and a Lions tour, amid 470 appearances for Cardiff and the small matter of 162 tries, a remarkable tally for a hooker.
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Then there was the second part of his rugby journey, close on two decades as Wales men's team manager when he worked with no fewer than six different head coaches from Henry to Gatland and shared in four Grand Slams.
So, where to begin when we meet up at the Vale Resort in Hensol, where he monitored the activities of so many Welsh internationals over the years. Let’s start with the nickname. Why Thumper?
“Well, my elder brother Howard was called Thump," he says. "I don’t know why, I’ve never asked him. So they called me Thumper. I liked to put the stories out there that it was because I was a great boxer, but that was all a load of bull really!”
Growing up in Pyle and then moving to Kenfig Hill as a teenager, he cut his rugby teeth with Cornelly RFC Youth, captaining Wales Youth from there, ahead of being approached by Cardiff after starring in the Bridgend Sevens at the Brewery Field.
“We beat Llanelli Youth in the final and I think I scored most of the points in the game. I was walking through Kenfig Hill then on the Monday evening and a bloke pulled up in a Morris Minor and said ‘excuse me, do you know where Alan Phillips lives?’
“I said 'I’ll jump in and show you'. Anyway, he took me home and when we got there he looked at me and said ‘it’s you, isn’t it?’ I said ‘yeah’ and that was Gary Davies, the Cardiff hooker. He was the one who coaxed me into going down there.”
Phillips had played in the centre a fair bit during his last year in youth and actually made his debut for the Blue and Blacks there, on tour against Paignton in September 1973. But hooker was his real position and that was where he was to make his name.
“I had mobility and speed and I liked fitness, I liked to train. I just loved playing hooker because you are involved all the time, like a scrum-half. You are throwing the ball in the lineout, hooking the ball in the scrum.”
It was to be a glittering career with Cardiff, where he won the Welsh Cup five times and was club captain from 1985-87. Then there was that extraordinary haul of tries. So, were you a poacher, Mr Phillips?
“I would like to think I made as many as I scored! I tell you what did help me, we had a driving maul. I scored 19 tries one season and about 14 of those from a driving maul. But Cardiff played rugby as well. We didn’t kick much. The ball was getting thrown around and you knew which players to track inside with. It was just great times.”
Phillips’ scoring exploits, his lineout accuracy and all-round game saw him called into the Wales squad in his early twenties and he was to win first cap in a memorable 27-3 victory at home to England in March 1979.
“I had a bit of luck, really," he reveals. "We played the week before against Pontypool up there in the cup and they had put the wrong type of lines down when they marked the field.
“I got up the next morning after the game and Christ the burns on my buttocks and thighs... it was quite painful. But it turned out Bobby Windsor, who was obviously the number one hooker at the time, was really badly burned. So I was pulled aside by Rod Morgan [chairman of selectors] and he said: ‘You will be playing against England next week’.
“Now I never reported my burns. I just went in the sea every day in Porthcawl to try and keep them clean. We trained on the Tuesday and I was in agony because it was rubbing in the scrums, but I didn’t say anything because I could see something at the end of the week and it turned out great.
“Obviously your first cap, you can’t beat that. But the game went so quick. It was over before you could blink. Everybody says the same about their first cap.
“But I do remember Geoff Wheel stamping on Billy Beaumont’s feet every time he tried to jump in the lineout! Billy always told me he hated playing against Geoff.
“The other thing that sticks in my mind is my wife-to-be was over in The Angel Hotel having fish and chips because I had told her to make sure she had some food. I had a bill off the Union the following Thursday for £6.75 for fish and chips and we had played in front of 54,000 for six pence a mile travelling expenses!
“So that was that start of it for me. I had that lucky break and they stuck with me after that, while Bobby finished.”
The following year, Phillips found himself up against the old enemy once again in the infamous Twickenham encounter which saw Wales flanker Paul Ringer sent off.
“Paul was unlucky in that game. I reckon he got sent off because of what he had done in the previous match against France, because what he did against England was nothing. They were after him. Somebody wanted to prove a point.”
While Ringer’s coming together with fly-half John Horton was pretty innocuous, the same couldn’t be said for some of the other incidents in that 1980 clash.
“That was pretty much the most violent international I played in. It was a tough game,” said Phillips.
“I remember getting stamped on - by one of my own team-mates, Terry Holmes! He didn’t mean to stamp on me, he was trying to stamp on John Scott, but he glanced off him and caught me in my gum. He hit my lip with his boot and pushed my nose and lip upwards. It tore the inside of my gum, ripped it all across. In them days, you carried on. Every now and then, I had to spit out the blood.
"After the game, I went into the medical room to get stitched up and there were about three or four English players in there. It was like a battle zone. Roger Uttley was one. He had some nasty cuts. That was unlucky. Geoff Wheel had gone to fly kick the ball and kicked him instead.
“I always remember the doctor saying to me ‘I think we’ll do you first’. I had a thing about needles at the time, because if you have a needle you can’t have a beer after. Bear in mind now, during the game our physio, Gerry Lewis, had said it’s just a scratch, a few stitches.
“Well, I had 27 stitches in there and I felt every one. The sweat was running down my face, but I wouldn’t give in because the English players were all there. They must have thought I was as tough as 10 bells.
“Anyway, I just managed to walk out into our changing room and I fainted, I had lost so much blood. I woke up with my feet in the air and an ice pack on my head.
“I was rooming with Ringer that night. He slept in the bath because my future wife was with me and we had the bed together. It was one thing after another.”
That summer, Phillips went on the Lions tour of South Africa and was involved as a replacement in all four Tests against the Springboks as back-up to England’s Peter Wheeler. But he wasn’t to get on the field for a single minute in the series, such was the nature of the game back then with subs only coming on in the event of injury.
“I had a bit of bad luck. I was playing well enough and I got picked to play against Transvaal on the Saturday before the second Test. It was going to be a big game for me. But then, a day or so beforehand, one of the boys was clowning around and I got hit with a fire extinguisher in the face. I spent four days in hospital. That was my big chance gone. That was it.”
Phillips remained a regular fixture in the Wales front row through to the end of the 1982 Six Nations, but then came five years in the Test wilderness. When asked whether that was down to form, he visibly bristles: “It wasn’t a change of form. I played some of my best rugby for Cardiff in them days.
“I knew the reason why I wasn’t in. I didn’t get on with a couple of the new coaches that took over. I was told by the forwards coach that I anticipated too much on the rugby field and was bordering offside all the time and all this. There is nothing you can do to change that view of you. I just cracked on and I just loved playing for Cardiff.”
But then, out of the blue at the age of 32, came a recall for the inaugural World Cup out in New Zealand and Australia in 1987.
“That was a real surprise. I was due to go on tour to Spain with Cardiff - Benidorm of all places. We had just got kitted out. We had a massive beer kitty. I am sure we got it up to about £10,000. So we were looking forward to a week in Benidorm enjoying life.
“Anyway, I took my wife out in Porthcawl the night before we were due to leave and I got a phone call from my mother-in-law, saying Ray Williams [WRU secretary] was ringing back to the house in half an hour, better get home. So, I got a taxi home and sure enough Ray rang. He said ‘Billy James has injured his knee, there’s a flight out for you on Sunday to the World Cup’.”
Phillips proceeded to play an important role as Wales claimed a third-place finish, starting in the notable victories over England and Australia in Brisbane and Rotorua.
“I had a big part to play in getting the front five tight. The boys were glad to have me there, I had that feeling, and I really enjoyed it. We really took England on. We pushed them off the ball and got on top of them up front. I’ve got fond memories of that World Cup because I got called back in late on in my career. You cherish it all the more then.”
That was to prove the end of his international career and he eventually hung up his boots in 1992, moving straight into coaching at the Arms Park, a decision he was to rue.
“I regret doing it. I said I would never do it. I got coaxed into coaching, staying on after I retired and I shouldn’t have done it. I should have had a break. I should have gone to Kenfig Hill and found out if I really wanted to be a coach.
“I coached Cardiff for 18 months and I realised it wasn’t for me. There were a couple of boys there that didn’t want to change. One of the committee men came on to me and said ‘one or two of the boys have been moaning and groaning’ and I said 'that will do me then'.”
Phillips headed for Kenfig Hill RFC, where he was to serve as coach and team manager, while enjoying a successful career outside the game with a crane hire company, a job which was to see him working up in London for four years.
“I got promoted and I was in charge of a sales team. I loved the job. You were dealing with construction people who loved their sport.”
But then, in the late 1990s, came a pivotal moment as he was persuaded to take up a position with the WRU.
“Kenfig Hill were playing Kidwelly and that was the club of Les Williams, who was on the WRU. He went on to me saying they needed some young blood on the committee, encouraging me to stand as a national rep, and that’s what I did.”
That was to lead to Phillips becoming Wales A team manager, working with coaches Dennis John and Leigh Jones during a highly successful period which saw the second string complete the Five Nations Grand Slam.
Then, in 2001, he was asked by Graham Henry to take on the manager’s role with the men's senior side, a position which soon became full-time. That was to be the start of an 18-year stint in the job during which he has quite literally seen everything.
After Henry’s departure, Steve Hansen took the helm, followed by Mike Ruddock, Scott Johnson, Gareth Jenkins and then, for 12 years, Warren Gatland.
“You have got to learn how to deal with different personalities. I was really sad to see Steve Hansen leave. I liked his style and I learned a lot from him how he handled players. His man-management skills were very similar to Warren’s. He would give players a chance and give them time as long as he could see them working hard. Hansen was good. I liked Gareth Jenkins and it was sad how it ended up for him.”
So which Wales coach did Phillips get on with best?
“Well, I worked with one bloke for 12 years, that says it all, doesn’t it? And he only called me a w**ker twice!”
During his two decades as team manager, there were inevitably a number of notorious incidents for Phillips to deal with, generally involving players getting into trouble after having a few too many drinks.
Perhaps the most infamous of all was Andy Powell’s late-night drive down the M4 in a golf buggy he had taken from the Vale in the wake of Wales’ dramatic 2010 victory over Scotland. So how did Phillips react when he heard that news?
“Well, it didn’t surprise me! Nothing did with Andy. That was one of many things but that one was dangerous,” he said.
“I had a contact in the police at the time and he rang me on the Sunday morning to give me the heads up about what had happened.
“So I called Warren, but I couldn’t get hold of him. He had left his phone in his car outside his apartment. The next thing then he is watching TV, Scrum V comes on and they say Andy Powell has been done for drink-driving in a golf buggy on the M4.
“He went ‘what?' He shot off to get his phone and there were about 28 missed calls from me. I had been ringing him for six hours! When we spoke then, I said 'what do you want to do?' and he said ‘you deal with it your way, son’. So that was it.”
Phillips has an interesting take on things when you ask him how he viewed players who overstepped the mark and got themselves into a bit of bother.
“I liked an owner-upper. Gavin Henson would always own up and I loved Mike Phillips because he would own up before he would go out! He would put his hand up and say ‘Thumper, I am going for it tonight’. I would say ‘if you see two big blokes follow you around, don’t try and pick on them because they are there to look after you’.
“If a player mucked up and owned up to it, I never took a dim view on it because they were all young men and young men make mistakes. They do stupid things in drink and we have all seen it.
“My job then was to clean it up quickly in a manner that we can nail it down, apologise, go and see the people and offer for them to come and see some games and heal it over pretty quickly, to get rid of any damage.”
So, were there any players that he simply couldn’t manage over the years? "Nobody is unmanageable. If they become unmanageable they are gone,” he replies.
All of which brings us back to the book. Not tempted at all? “No, I refused to do one because I know too much. I know all the secrets and I would have to tell the truth,” he says.
“I would like to think in my time I looked after a lot of players. Some got up to some stuff in drink that was a bit stupid. The privacy of that is more important to me than getting a couple of bob for writing a book. I have had a few people approach me about doing one. But loyalty works both ways. You have got to have trust.”
In terms of his general approach to the job, he says: “I just wanted to put everything in place for the coaches and the players, so all they had to do was think about how to win the next game.
“It’s all about having the right environment. So we looked at facilities, developing the Centre of Excellence here at the Vale, and having the right coaches and support staff in place. You look at the people involved with Warren and there was so much quality there.
“Success breeds success and every time we would win Roger Lewis would be looking for me to say ‘right, what do you want next?’
“We wanted to create an environment where every time the players came in they saw a difference, they saw us trying to better ourselves in terms of everything within the set-up. It was about giving us all a chance.
“Ultimately, the big things for players are training facilities, food and a good bed. If you can get them all right, they have got nothing to worry about.”
Stepping down from the Wales job in 2019, after reaching another World Cup semi-final, Phillips went on to be director of operations with the British and Irish Lions, working with Gatland once more.
Now, having just turned 68, he is finally retired and enjoying family life in Porthcawl, his home since the early '80s. Married to Cerry for 42 years, he has a son and a daughter - Ben and Natalie - and three grandchildren, with a fourth on the way.
He is also still contributing to the sport he loves and looking to give something back in his role as president of Kenfig Hill RFC.
So, finally, after a career like none other in the game, what has rugby meant to him?
“It is everything, isn’t it? It’s been a passport to travel the world and meet some fantastic people. All those games for Cardiff, playing for Wales and the Lions, then to be part of the successes we’ve had with the national team over the last couple of decades. For a boy from Pyle and Kenfig Hill, it’s been fantastic. I owe the game so much.”
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